Harvard, Yale And The Puritans

From Connecticut-

Each November, Thanksgiving focuses attention upon the Pilgrims, that group of courageous English dissenters who came to New England in 1620. They were the vanguard of the Puritan influx, Calvinists who rejected ceremonialism in worship and insisted on a congregational form of church government. Ironically, while they sought to practice their religion freely, they soon exhibited reluctance to grant that right to other faiths .

One of their major concerns was education. The Reformation emphasis on reading the Bible meant that their offspring must be literate, and soon one-room schoolhouses were found throughout their early settlements. It is no coincidence, either, that both Harvard and Yale, arguably the best-known of American universities, were established by the Puritans.

Harvard was founded in 1636 at New Towne (later Cambridge), Massachusetts, primarily to train clergy. An early anonymous description of the college’s origin recalled: “After God had carried us safe to New England … dreading to leave illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust…it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard, a godly gentleman and a lover of learning.to give one half of his estate…towards the erecting of a college, and all of his library.”

More here-

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/religion/article_ae982dac-2da0-11e2-a676-001a4bcf887a.html